Run: 2026-10-13-01M4V1PFS1Z5D54JMBSKRQ8ZZY

The Heartstone Pendant burned against Rory’s collarbone, its deep crimson surface pulsing like a frantic second heartbeat. She wrapped her fingers around the thumbnail-sized gem, feeling the heat bleed through her shirt as she stared at the air between two ancient oak standing stones. To her normal sight, it was just a patch of Richmond Park’s hidden Fae Grove, where impossible wildflowers bloomed despite the encroaching autumn chill. Beside her, however, Isolde and Nyx were staring at something else entirely. "The Veil weeps when the gluttonous knock," Isolde murmured, her pale lavender eyes fixed on the empty space. Her waist-length silver hair caught a breeze that Rory couldn't feel. "Step where the air forgets to breathe, little bird, lest the doorway close upon your feathers." "Right. Doorway," Rory muttered, tucking a strand of straight black hair behind her ear. Her left hand dropped to her hip, her thumb brushing the small crescent-shaped scar on her wrist before settling on the hilt of the Fae-Forged Blade. Even through the leather sheath, the moonsilver dagger remained bitingly cold—a sharp contrast to the feverish warmth of the pendant on its silver chain. Nyx shifted beside her. At over six feet tall, the Shade’s humanoid silhouette looked like a tear in the fabric of the world, darkness poured into the shape of a person. Their faintly glowing violet eyes narrowed as they reached out with a hand that shifted from drifting smoke to solid, pitch-black flesh. Where Nyx’s fingers met the air between the oak stones, a faint shimmering distortion rippled outward like oil on water. "The tear is unstable," Nyx said, their voice a dry whisper carried on a phantom wind. "Normally the Wardens would have sealed a rift this wide. Something on the other side is holding it open." "Then let's not keep them waiting," Rory said. Before her common sense could staging a mutiny—perhaps reminding her that twenty-five-year-old takeaway delivery drivers from Cardiff had no business stepping into otherworldly rifts—she drew the leaf-shaped dagger and stepped between the oaks. The transition wasn't a fall, nor a step. It was the sensation of being swallowed. For a fraction of a second, the air tasted of copper and ozone. Then her boots hit solid ground that yielded slightly beneath her weight, like thick moss or overripe fruit. Rory gasped, her lungs filling with warm, heavy air saturated with the dizzying scent of焦burnt sugar, crushed pomegranates, and roasting marrow. She blinked her bright blue eyes against a sudden, overwhelming wash of light. Above them, there was no sun, yet the entire sky stretched out in a vast, unbroken dome of warm amber, casting everything below in the syrupy glow of an eternal late afternoon. "Welcome to Dymas," Nyx whispered, stepping through the shimmer behind her. In the amber light, the Shade’s edges looked frayed, their shadow-stuff recoiling slightly from the pervasive brightness. Isolde glided through last. Rory glanced down and noticed, with a familiar prickle of unease, that while her own scuffed boots left deep indentations in the rich, dark violet soil, the Half-Fae seer’s bare feet didn't bend a single blade of the golden grass. "Well," Rory breathed, lowering her dagger a fraction. "It’s certainly not London." They stood on the crest of a terraced hill that rolled downward into an impossible valley. Sprawling vineyards choked with vines thicker than a man's thigh coiled around trellises made of bleached bone and hammered gold. Beyond the vineyards lay orchards where the trees drooped under the weight of iridescent, unfamiliar fruits—some glowing like lanterns, others dripping thick, honey-colored sap that sizzled softly where it hit the ground. It was breathtaking, an endless tapestry of growth and abundance, yet as Rory looked closer, the wonder curdled in her stomach. "Look at the vines," she said quietly. They moved deeper down the hill, following a path paved with what looked like mother-of-pearl. As they passed the first row of vineyard trellises, the leaves rustled without wind. The vines were moving, creeping over one another in a slow, peristaltic rhythm, squeezing the clusters of bloated, ruby-dark grapes until they burst. The juice didn't soak into the dirt; it ran down carved channels in the pearl path, flowing downhill like veins of wine. "A realm that feeds upon itself," Isolde said, her voice lilting as she reached toward a low-hanging bough. A flower with petals like spun sugar opened toward her fingers, revealing a center filled with tiny, chattering teeth. Isolde pulled her hand back with a serene smile. "Here, the hungry are eaten by their own desires, and the full know only emptiness." "Could you just once say 'don't touch the plants' like a normal person?" Rory asked, eyeing the toothed blossom as it snapped shut with an audible click. "Where is the poetry in survival, Laila?" Isolde replied, using one of the names she’d plucked from Rory’s tangled history. Nyx drifted ahead, slipping from solid form into a flat ribbon of darkness that slithered up the trunk of a towering, twisted orchard tree, then reforming on a high branch. Their violet eyes scanned the horizon. "There are structures to the east," the Shade reported, dropping back to the path without a sound. "Pavillions of glass and bronze. And smoke. The kind that comes from cooking fires." Rory touched the Heartstone Pendant again. Since crossing the Veil, its frantic pulsing had settled into a steady, persistent thrum, tugging subtly toward the east, away from the shimmering distortion behind them that marked their exit back to the Grove. Because of the Grove’s warped time, she had no idea if five minutes in this amber-lit valley would mean five hours or five days back in Richmond Park. Yu-Fei Cheung was going to dock her pay at the Golden Empress if she missed her evening shift, assuming she didn't get digested by killer topiary first. They pressed on through the orchard. The deeper they went, the more the environment assaulted their senses. The hum of insects sounded remarkably like distant, overlapping symphony music—violins and cellos sawed by unseen wings. The air grew warmer, coating Rory’s skin in a fine glaze of sweet moisture that smelled of vanilla and cardamom. When they reached the edge of the orchard, the trees gave way to a sunken garden bisected by a river of pale, foaming cream. Across a bridge of braided silver wire, a massive pavilion rose toward the amber sky. Rory crouched behind a hedge of oversized, velvet-leaved bushes, pulling her Fae blade close. The moonsilver gleamed faintly, drinking in the strange light, its coldness grounding her against the dizzying perfume of the garden. In the courtyard before the pavilion, dozens of figures moved with frantic, mechanical precision around long tables of butcher-block marble. They looked human—chefs in stained white aprons, their sleeves rolled up—but their eyes were sunken and hollow, their movements jerky as if pulled by invisible strings. "Helbound souls," Nyx murmured, kneeling beside Rory, their shadow-form blending into the dark foliage beneath the hedge. "Contracted from Earth. Belphegor’s master chefs." Rory watched in grim fascination as one of the chefs took a cleaver to a massive, iridescent melon. When it split open, a flock of tiny, jewel-toned birds erupted from the rind, only to be caught mid-air by a net of sizzling caramel spun by another chef. A third worker stood by a cauldron, weeping silently as he grated what looked suspiciously like his own knuckles into a boiling reduction, the flesh regenerating the moment it hit the blade of the grater. "They look terrified," Rory whispered, her grip tightening on her dagger. "Why don't they stop?" "To stop is to starve, and to starve is to be served," Isolde said softly behind them. She hadn't crouched; she stood in plain view among the velvet leaves, yet none of the frantic workers looked her way. "Their contracts are written in appetite. They sought perfection on Earth; here, perfection consumes them." A deep, resonant gong sounded from inside the pavilion—a sound so rich and heavy that Rory felt it vibrate in her teeth, tasting suddenly of dark chocolate and ash. At the sound, the chefs moved faster, their whimpers rising in pitch as enormous, multi-limbed silhouettes began to gather at the pavilion's golden archways, waiting for the feast. Beneath Rory’s collar, the Heartstone Pendant flared with a sudden, searing heat, pointing straight toward the center of that chaotic kitchen. Rory let out a slow breath, her mind already racing through angles, distractions, and exit strategies. "Alright," she muttered, her blue eyes narrowing as she studied the bridge and the patrolling shadows. "Nyx, tell me you can still travel through shadows when the sky is the color of marmalade." The Shade’s violet eyes crinkled. "With effort. The light here is thick, but fear casts very deep shadows, Rory. And this place is full of it." "Good," Rory said, adjusting her grip on the freezing moonsilver hilt. "Because we’re about to crash dinner."